Offshore wind has been placed as a major player in the renewable energy transition. However, a new phase of the industry's lifecycle is now arriving, and it's one policy hasn't fully caught up with yet, that being “decommissioning”.

The RenewableUK Global Offshore Wind Conference 2023 took place in London from 14th - 15th June 2023. This flagship conference was attended by over 160 key players from the offshore wind sector and was packed with talks from industry leaders, policy makers, regulators, and innovators at the cutting edge of offshore wind.

The second Living Windfarms Project hybrid workshop was held at the University of East Anglia on the 16th of March 2023. The workshop outlined current decommissioning legislation and included participants in discussions about the process of decommissioning and the necessary ecological considerations.

Decommissioning is the last phase in the lifetime of infrastructure projects such as offshore windfarms, involving the shutting down of operations and removing materials and equipment from the site. By 2030, about 600 offshore wind turbines should be decommissioned with 72% of them based upon monopile foundations. There is need for a cost-effective way of decommissioning and repurposing offshore wind infrastructure that considers the marine environment in which they were installed.

Our first Living Windfarms Project hybrid workshop took place at the University of Essex, featuring speakers from the University, as well as Bournemouth University, the Rich North Sea, and Exo Engineering. The workshop began with introductions to the project and partner organisations before exploring the interactions between scour protection and biodiversity in the North Sea.